Kurosawa’s ‘The Masque of the Black Death’ to be made into Anime (plus a ‘Rashomon’ remake)

Continuing with the AK100 related news (see my previous post), it has also been announced that Kurosawa Production together with Japan’s Lotus, America’s Lexicon Film Entertainment and Harbor Light Entertainment, plus Singapore’s Upside Down Entertainment are producing an animated adaptation of a script adapted by Kurosawa and Masato Ide (who also co-wrote Red Beard, Kagemusha and Ran) from Edgar Allan Poe’s The Masque of the Red Death. The film is to be released in 2010.

Kurosawa and Ide apparently worked on the script in 1975, just after the completion of Dersu Uzala. Possibly influenced by Kurosawa’s stay in Russia filming Dersu Uzala, The Masque of the Black Death is set in a fictional early 20th century Russia where the world is facing a deadly plague.

This is far from being the first time “The Masque of the Red Death” is adapted on the big screen. Perhaps most famously, Vincent Price played the lead in Roger Corman’s 1964 adaptation.

Another new film for us all to enjoy is a planned Hollywood remake of Rashomon that was also announced recently.